Thursday, August 18, 2016

By Wayne Madsen ReportThe Department of Justice, which is normally quite detailed in its criminal indictments, left out some key information in the federal criminal charges brought against Samuel Mebiame, a political fixer whose father Leon Mebiame was once prime minister of natural resource-rich Gabon in Africa. Neither the hedge fund nor the offshore entity were named in the indictment issued by the U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York in Brooklyn, a job held by Attorney General Loretta Lynch before President Obama named her as U.S. Attorney General last year.

The failure to provide details about the corporate entities involved in the bribery of African officials, including those in Gabon, in exchange for lucrative mineral rights for Western corporations may very well be an attempt by Lynch to stymie any ties to the Clinton Foundation's "pay-to-play" extortion, kickbacks, and bribery racket.

The hedge fund named in the indictment of Mebiame is, in fact, the large Och-Ziff Management Capital Group LLC, formed by former Goldman Sachs executive Daniel Och and the heirs to the publishing fortune ofWilliam Bernard Ziff, Jr., and the offshore company is Palladino Holdings, Ltd. of the Turks and Caicos Islands. The two companies, along with Mvelaphanda Holdings of South Africa, formed a joint venture called Africa Management Ltd, on behalf of which Mebiame allegedly bribed officials in Chad, Niger, and Guinea for mining contracts. Curiously, Gabon, where Mebiame lives and which has a history of bribes for mining contracts, was not named in the indictment of Mebiame. The omission may be due to the fact that the Clinton Foundation received a $175,000 donation from the mining conglomerate BHP Billiton in return for Hillary Clinton's State Department ensuring the firm's continued mining contracts in Gabon and Guinea. Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign has seen lucrative donations from another mining company with operations in Guinea, Rio Tinto, Inc.

Mvelaphanda Holdings was founded by former African National Congress government minister Tokyo Sexwale, who has been involved in negotiating a deal to take over mining operations in Guinea along with a Kazakhstan mining conglomerate headquartered in Luxembourg. Sexwale's hedge fund partner Och has contributed to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.

The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are in negotiations with Och-Ziff to have its London office and its joint venture Africa Management Ltd. plead guilty to bribery charges, that, in addition to Guinea, Chad, and Niger, involve contracts in Libya and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Ever since his days as governor of Arkansas, Bill Clinton has benefited from firms that held lucrative mining contracts in the DRC, previously known as Zaire. One DRC mining firm, America Mineral Fields, owned by a national of Mauritius, located its global headquarters in Bill Clinton's birthplace of Hope, Arkansas, in order to curry favor with the Clintons.

Secretary of State Clinton's March 2010 meeting with Gabon President Omar Bongo involved more than talking about the weather. Mining companies in Gabon kicked in big to her campaign coffers and the "pay-to-play" Clinton Foundation racket.

Mebiame refused to enter a plea when he was arraigned at the U.S. Federal Courthouse in Brooklyn on August 16. None of the corporate entities were charged in the bribery scandal with only Mebiame named as a defendant in the case U.S. v. Mebiame. Government officials accepting bribes from Mebiame in Chad, Niger, and Guinea -- all part of Obama's military coalition against terrorism in West Africa -- were not named in the indictment nor were they charged with any crimes. The officials included Mohammed Conde, the son of Guinean president Alpha Conde. Sexwale and his corporate partners have tried to negotiate a takeover of BHP Billiton's mining concessions in Guinea. Sexwale's other partner was theEurasian National Resources Corporation (ENRC) of Kazakhstan, a country where Bill Clinton and his Canadian mining donor Frank Giustra have significant mining business connections with the government of President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

South African mining billionaire Tokyo Sexwale, then South Africa's Minister of Human Settlements (with microphone), visits Bill Clinton's New York office on February 23, 2012. The indictment of the son of a former Gabon prime minister by Loretta Lynch's successor in Brooklyn curiously avoided naming Sexwale's company in African bribery scandal. Reason: Sexwale is too close to "Slick Willy" and "Slick Hilly."

Part of the reason for BHP Billiton's $175,000 donation to the Clinton Foundation was to offset the influence with Clinton already "bought" by Giustra, Kazakhstan, and indirectly by Sexwale and his partners. The U.S. owes Sexwale some favors. A December 15, 2009 Confidential U.S. embassy Pretoria cable to Secretary of State Clinton paints Sexwale as not only one of South Africa's wealthiest businessman but someone who served as the eyes and ears for U.S. embassy "political officers," i.e., Central Intelligence Agency spooks, when he attended the special congress of the South African Communist Party.

The BHP Billiton donation to the Clinton Foundation was purely "protection insurance" for the firm's large mining operations in Guinea and Gabon. Apparently, Samuel Mediame's crime was not to kick in some of his bribery profits to the Clinton Foundation and Mrs. Clinton's presidential campaign as did the other players in the bribery scheme. When the Cosa Nostra engaged in such protection rackets, its crime bosses were sent away to federal prison. When the Clintons engage in them, they are rewarded not with the "Big House" but the White House.